what does this say?

Question

ich habe nonnen gesehen, die waren fieser als du.


der Gasherd hat wohl noch eine besondere bedeutung........!

Answer 1

#1: "I saw nuns who were nastier than you." A few things: Nouns in German are capitalized, and so I'm assuming the non-capitalization of "Nonnen" was a typo on your part. Secondly, "habe gesehen", although identical to "have seen" in structure, actually indicates past tense in German rather than perfect. (In German, English present and perfect tenses are both expressed by present tense--witness, for example, the line "Das ist mein Freund seit über einem Jahr!" from the movie "Run Lola Run": "He's been my boyfriend for over a year!") Third, I have a feeling that the sentence originally went, "Ich habe Nonnen gesehen, die fieser als du waren," because in German the word order is inverted in subordinate clauses.

As for situations where English perfect tense indicates past tense, they would still be translated in German in a "haben/sein + verb" construction because they indicate that an action has been completed in the past. Because Alpine Alli's sample sentence contains "were", a stronger case can be made that the nuns are no longer nasty than that they continue to be.

An alternate way of expressing past tense in German, of course, is by using the "imperfect" tense, but that is used more to convey the sense of "used to do such-and-such".

#2: "The gas stove probably has yet another significance." "Bedeutung", which, as a noun, is also supposed to be capitalized, has a variety of meanings; see http://dict.leo.org/ende?lp=ende&lang=de&searchLoc=0&cmpType=relaxed§Hdr=on&spellToler=on&search=bedeutung&relink=on .

Answer 2

I'll try:

First one, assuming Nonnen should be capitalized: I've seen nuns who were nastier than you.

Second, "Stove" must have another meaning. (Or "Gasherd" must.)


@Ichliebe... OK, so how would you translate "I've seen nuns who were nastier than you" back into German? Sometimes English present perfect is for past action!

Answer 3

wat language is this? is it german ?